Uncharted Waters
by BonGarland
Summary: A noble patriot sporting a shield. His winged ally. A red-haired assassin. A long-lost friend, mind and armor battered and tarnished almost beyond recognition. All have a mission, but what will the fallout of Project Insight bring? A multiple-POV, post-TWS serial.
1. Chapter 1

**I had to - famous last words. It may be dumb to delve into a new project, but I'm doing it nonetheless! Expanding my character repertoire; tentatively trying to channel some different Marvel material...Anyways.**

* * *

_No one looking at the pair of boys would ever have believed that the smaller, frailer one was in fact the older of the two. That Steve Rogers, asthmatic, prone to bouts of bronchitis after light rain, prime bait of schoolyard bullies, skinny, shy, short, small, diminutive little Steve whom a hefty gust of wind could knock over, could hold anything over James Buchanan Barnes besides a couple weeks of age. Bucky was taller, athletic, strong, outgoing, popular with the girls, overall just so much more "swell" than Steve, according to the other boys at school._

_None of it mattered to the scant weeks-younger boy who approached a playground fight on a rainy afternoon in April. It was more of an athletic routine for the larger boy, Big Charlie, he was called, to whom it was not even a fight, to whom the other boy was merely a choice punching bag, and his fists the coolest things since baseball cards had been invented._

_James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes shouldered his way past the other boys and a few tittering girls, rolling up his sleeves to reveal the slender forearms of a typical ten year-old boy, making a show of flexing for Susan Johnson, the cutest girl in class to his decade-old self. And without further ado, he jumped into the fray, landing a solid sock to Big Charlie's chubby jaw with a little battle cry. _

_The schoolyard went silent, the howling wind the only noise after the audience gasped in unison, until Bucky proffered a rain-pelted hand to Steven Rogers, the boy prostrate in the mud at his feet. "Howdy. Name's Bucky."_

"_Steve. Rogers," the smaller boy gasped, nodding his thanks as a dirt-streaked hand latched onto Bucky's and he was levered up from the muddy field. Steve's savior grabbed onto the loose material at his shoulder, of which there was an unfortunate abundance – the kid was so SKINNY – and started to lead him back inside. Bucky sent a single glare back at Big Charlie, who was still flat on his back on the wet ground with an indignant look on his face; the glare said stay down, I can do that again, and the bully complied, only rising from the wet grass when the pair had wandered back towards the school. _

"_So, d'you have a proper name? And a last name?" Steve wondered aloud, his tone still breathy, inhalations a struggle as they lurched towards the warmth the building offered._

"_What d'you mean? Bucky's a dynamite name," the taller boy protested, still tugging his charge along with a hand fisted in Steve's shirt. The frailer boy just stared sidelong at Bucky as they walked, a laugh turning into a wracking cough at his defensive expression._

"_Okay, okay, full name's James Buchanan Barnes," Bucky relented, mumbling the last bit so incoherently that he had to repeat it again. "Sheesh, it doesn't exactly get the ladies, Steve-O." He slung his arm around Steve to lend his small frame more support, deciding instantly that he would be this boy's friend for life._

_They made it to the nurse's office without Steve dying of lung failure, which young Bucky considered a success; he'd never seen someone cough so much or find it so hard to breathe. He started to relate the tale of bullying, cutting himself off mid-sentence at a glare from Steve, instead faking a cough himself and asking if he might have some medicine too? _

_The nurse instead admonished the taller boy for keeping the shorter outside, because recess and playtime weren't worth Pneumonia, and Bucky took it like a champ, appropriately somber at the right moments and promising to look out for Steve more. He really meant it._

* * *

Steve always had a tell, he'd been told; the Howling Commandos had all assured him the inherent honesty that came with him was a terrible weakness when it came to poker, and so they were right. Apparently, he unconsciously gnawed on his lip when he was in trouble. He lost dollar after dollar to those guys in '44 alone, even when they were raging drunk and he was stone-cold sober, thanks to The Serum, as it had been dubbed. He'd been warned never to try bluffing with any Nazis, to instead stick to what he was good at and just hit them or something.

Now, his lip was being chewed furiously, and even poor Sam Wilson could tell something was wrong.

"Where's the red-haired chick when ya need her?" The pilot-of-sorts murmured dolefully, watching Steve throw his shield again and again at a sealed iron doorway, without any success in opening it, not even an inch. "She always has something up her sleeve."

"That she does," Steve let out on a sigh, he too wishing fervently that Natasha Romanoff were around to concoct a deadly weapon out of a scrunchie, or a bomb out of a stiletto. She was good at the crafty things like that, the subtler arts of fighting that were essential to espionage; Steve was just, well, Steve, shield in hand and nobility in his every move.

They were on the trail of the Winter Soldier, and any person on the street could have told them it was a bad idea to beat and blunder your way into an ex-HYDRA cell that _actually_ wasn't so much _ex-_HYDRA as it was a "resentful clusterfuck of traitorous swine who couldn't accept defeat", or something along those lines, as Sam had been muttering.

Still, they were trapped, Sam's wings useless in the sealed, metal-fortified hallway, Steve's shield just resounding, gonglike, against the wall whenever it impacted. The Captain finally stopped hurling the thing, securing it to his back again and starting to pace.

Then, the door opened, and HYDRA agents flooded in.

* * *

He was watching. No, The Soldier was watching.

Now lacking any instruction, his programming lacking any updates for several weeks now, he had struck out on his own, determined to extinguish HYDRA, who had extinguished the man he used to be, but also to...to what? To finish the original mission, or to act in blatant defiance of those last orders and instead protect the Captain that America cherished? He wasn't sure anymore, roughly guiding his movements around those last commands, to kill Steve Rogers.

The red-haired woman was still at large too, he knew, and if he came across her, he would surely be able to fulfill _that _task – surely, because the haunted look that had flickered on and off in her eyes was _nothing _like what he saw in his own when he happened across his reflection through a glass window or in the rearview mirror of a stolen car. No, he felt no kinship at all to the Black Widow, whom even cursory google research revealed to be of his own ilk, molded, shaped, programmed as a weapon by Soviet forces to kill, exterminate, eliminate, assassinate, murder, remove.

He wasn't sure how he had been followed; perhaps it was a coincidence, though in the wiring of his being, there was no coincidence, there was only pain, obedience, and killing.

In any case, the star-spangled Captain was currently locked in battle with the entire reserve force housed in a HYDRA hideout located in a remote corner of the state of Wyoming. Something in him felt…guilty, at fault? No, that wasn't right, because he didn't feel, he only removed, only obeyed, only bestowed upon various targets the "gift" that Alexander Pierce had so often spoke of.

Now, he crouched upon the darkened catwalk of a HYDRA warehouse, surveying the fight that had spilled out of the sealed corridor and into the open space, watching for – Yes, there it was – a flash of vibrant blue, still alive, still moving, still fighting. For the Captain was his to kill, his alone, that was the only reason his continued existence was any consolation, wasn't that right?

Flicking the metal wrist of his left arm down to his belt, he retrieved a blade, eyes intent on the battle below him, bionic fingers flipping the blade to flesh-and-blood digits. The metal fingers latched around the railing, the Winter Soldier rising to a standing position. The metal arm flipped him gracefully, silently, like the ghost he was, over the railing to drop twenty feet into the midst of his competitors, his rivals, all of those fighting to achieve the title of Steve Rogers' killer.

* * *

One moment it was just him and Sam, felling any HYDRA agents who came too close, and then there was another, a silent third man who merely started downing anyone in his path.

Steve paused outright in surprise, eyelids fluttering as he squinted to see who had arrived to help. Was it Natasha? No, there was no characteristic flare of red hair flipping around the felled men. Barton? As far as he knew, the archer was off with Natasha in Europe. Who, then…?

And then a flash of metal caught the light, an object to large to be a blade, something with a crimson red star splashed onto the shoulder – the shoulder of the Winter Soldier.

Fully masked and goggled, the Soviet assassin was taking out HYDRA agents left and right, with the trademark efficiency that made him myth and legend among intelligence circles. Steve was mesmerized by his movements for a moment, before motion in the corner of his eye alerted him to an attacked in close proximity. Whirling, he ducked and swung out with the shield, then flung it backhandedly at one of Sam's assailants.

Falcon, grounded in the still-close quarters, was reduced to a single handgun and his own hand-to-hand skills. "Thanks!" He shouted across the room to Steve, who nodded, retrieving his shield as it rebounded back to him, boomerang-like. The enemies were now thinned drastically, those remaining withdrawing like the ocean before a tsunami, and he didn't like it.

The HYDRA agents had backed against the far wall, leaving the way clear for the Winter Soldier to approach. He did so hesitantly, his steps almost trudging as he edged around debris and fallen agents to face Steve. Coming to a halt, he made no offensive move, and Steve was reminded of the helicarrier – no move made to attack, just to block his progress, his stance merely menacingly defensive.

The Soldier cocked his head to the side as if scrutinizing something, the mask and goggles rendering his facial expression completely unreadable. The metal arm made a small whirring sound, like gears turning, and the fingers of the hand flexed, clenching and unclenching over and over.

Steve opened his mouth, and then an explosion rocked the entire room, red and fire and shrapnel the only things visible for a moment.

"You okay?" A voice drawled, and he looked up to see more red, the fiery mane of the Black Widow curtaining her face as she crouched over him. Barton was right at her back, arrow notched onto his bow, his stance wary, feet rotating him in repetitive, vigilant circles.

Realizing his mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water, Steve shook his head, accepting the proffered hand Natasha held out to him. She raised him to his feet seemingly effortlessly, and he wondered idly if she'd ever been experimented on – she was quite a specimen of stamina herself, for one so much slighter than him. Shaking away that thought, Steve's eyes raked the smoky remains of the HYDRA warehouse, glad that a silver arm was not among the fallen, but also disappointed it was not in sight.

"That's not the word I'd use," he replied wearily after a moment, retrieving his fallen shield and leading the way out of the burning building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello! This is proving pretty challenging for me, in a good way, I suppose. It's fascinating to explore different characters and relationships, and satisfy all my feels at the same time...Apologies, also, for any wonky lacks-of-line-breaks. Something in FFN's formatting has been acting up for me lately. Anyways, onward!**

* * *

Agent Maria Hill, now dubbed "Officer Hill", had seen a lot in her years with SHIELD, but the material she was currently mining had nothing on most of that.

Metaphorically crawling into the human resources office at Stark Industries with her tail between her legs had been a difficult thing for Hill to do, accustomed as she was to being a second-in-command, but she'd made the best of the situation. Now she was essentially a nobody, a newbie in the security department assigned to monitor the surveillance of Stark Tower.

Of course, it looked great on paper, but everyone who was anyone knew that Stark Tower took care of itself, the building nearly its own living being, Jarvis being the consciousness, immune system, and defense all in one streamlined package. Maria was actually up to a bit more than that, off the record. While grainy images of Tony's dining room, lab, gym, and gaming room – set up on Thor and Barton's behalves – rotated across the screens in front of her, Hill was glued to a laptop in front of her.

The computer was a durable, military-grade sort, covering in bulletproof, shatterproof, almost-anything-proof casing, and it was currently hardwired into a database of HYDRA files. Her true assignment was to harvest anything of particular value or interest, filter through all of the blood, plots, lies, but it was proving more difficult than she had expected. It was gut-wrenching to witness filmed meetings of secret councils, sharing SHIELD secrets among each other like trivial high-school gossip, comparing notes, discussing the Avengers' movements, international assassinations, covering anything under the sun, really. Her frown had only deepened when she'd come across several especially-encrypted files tagged "The Asset".

Opening those had been a can of worms and a half, she realized with a grimace, scrolling through hours and hours of footage from the forties, fifties, everything up to today. There were surgeries, mental drilling procedures, image association tests, Russian lessons, and punishments. Lots of punishments, issued at the slightest hint of disobedience on the part of "Sergeant Barnes", whom he was dubbed for only the first few sessions of tape. Most punishments had shed blood, represented as dark splatters on the black-and-white footage. The installation of the arm had been included, as well, the noise of antiquated saws chiseling through flesh and bone proving a little too graphic for perusal right after lunch, so she skipped through.

A choppy image of Zola had wandered into a lab, caught on tape in what must have been around 1946 as he was shown nodding in satisfaction at the Soldier, who was completing a series of factual tests on information regarding the man who would be his first target. Zola had clapped his hands when it ended, turning to The Asset and murmuring that he would now be called The Winter Soldier, with a disgusting amount of pride in his own ingenuity audible in the thick accent. There was no movement of assent from the man in question, his expression full of a blank resignation. Zola had promptly moved to one side of the room, whispering harshly to another scientist to "Make ze new name stick." What followed was a session with the rudimentary machine they'd developed to alter brainwaves, the "brainwashing" device as it were, and lots of screams of pain. Maria didn't realize her hand was shaking until a twitching fingertip accidentally hit the keyboard, pausing the feed.

Calling it a day at that, she double-checked the time and filled out her daily log for Stark Industries, Hill pulled a blank zip drive from her pocket, sticking it promptly into the laptop and downloading every file mentioning The Asset. The file transfer was a long one, as the soldier comprised a fair amount of material, and she tapped her fingers against her crossed arms as the computer worked. Eyeing her phone, she snatched it up, scrolling down to the contact number for Steve Rogers. He'd want to see this…She dialed, waiting for his polite tones to answer. When he did, his voice was strained, but the forties-era gentleman was still there.

"I know you're not overly fond of zip drives containing highly-classified information at this point, but I've got one I think you should take a look at," She said crisply, naming a time later that night and promptly hanging up. When a ding sounded the completion of her file transfer, Maria Hill started packing up her paperwork, removing the zip drive and stashing it in an inside pocket of her coat. Without any hesitation, she typed in a command to irreversibly delete any file mentioning "The Asset", everything she had gleaned, from the Stark Industries database as well as the original HYDRA material. Steve could have the final say in who knew what where it concerned Sergeant Barnes.

Shutting down the computers in her office, Hill grabbed up her keys and strode out the door, heart feeling alternately lighter and heavier than it had in weeks. Unknown to her, Jarvis' recovery program was running behind the scenes, retrieving all dumped files to a secure hard drive. Permanent deletions had to be run past Pepper or Tony, first.

* * *

He woke with a sharp gasp, echoing renditions of that _name _screamed in The Mission's voice dying away as the remnants of slumber did, the sight of a snowy, mountainous landscape fading from his mind's blurry vision. A quick glance out the windshield showed it was still a few hours before dawn, the sun nowhere near rising. The air was cold and the gearshift of the truck was digging into his side, but pain was nothing to the Soldier, the agony in his mind consuming all his attention.

Bits and pieces were returning, with no warning, nothing to give away the fact that a memory was about to erupt in his brain, smothering all concentration on what he'd been doing, pausing even his physical movements with the staggering effects. It had happened several times when he'd been out in the city, an aged lamp in an antique shop's window prompting a flash back to the façade of a white house, the puttering noise of an older truck's engine struggling to continue down the road spurring on images of a commander barking orders from the front of a military caravan, a special-edition glass bottle of Coca-Cola summoning the image of Captain America, but slighter, and in a collared shirt and tie, struggling to pop the cop of a similar bottle with a weak fist.

Cheyenne, a sign had said, but he didn't know how he'd even gotten here. He'd stolen a car – didn't know where he'd learned that, either, considering the Soviets kept him well-supplied with jeeps and sleek getaway coupes with keys already in the ignition – and just started driving, a few sparse belongings in a canvas bag in the passenger seat from when he'd cleared out a supplies cache from a train station locker in D.C.

A simple laptop had been in the bag, something wired into the program his employers – teachers – keepers? had used to track targets and issue orders. An application showed where numerous safe-houses were located, as well as hideouts, and his eyes had shot to one in remote Wyoming. They would be fleeing, far from D.C. for the time being while manhunts were conducted, and the western plains would be as good a place as any to start the decimation of any remaining HYDRA agents, a logical voice in the back of his mind mused. And it would get him far from D.C. as well, far away from the honorary exhibit hosting a ten-foot tall image of his face, boasting of his various accomplishments as the right-hand man and best friend of Steve Rogers, far away from the crowds of children who milled around said exhibit, exclaiming excitedly that they'd _love _to be Captain America's sidekick.

Far away from the Captain himself, too, something that was imperative at the time. He didn't know, frankly, whether he'd embrace the man on sight, or stick a blade between his ribs. Everything was so sketchy, his brain feeling like a glitching technical device, like the machines his handlers would mutter and curse at in Russian when the calibrations left him a little too addled for a mission.

And now, he'd just fled the scene of another confrontation with the brave man whose wardrobe always seemed to include blue, and he wasn't sure if it was relief or shame that colored his thoughts as he retreated. The man was alive, spared from a rogue gang of bloodthirsty HYDRA agents, and that was good, but no, it wasn't, was it?

He glanced in the rearview mirror as he started the truck, determined to not stay in one place any longer than necessary when he had a job to do. It showed a road completely free of traffic, and his own face, free of mask, goggles, and the kohl that often disguised his features, the hair the only thing consistent with the image of the Winter Soldier. He felt free, but bare, despite the several days' worth of scraggly beard. His eyes caught the glint of a rifle's muzzle peeking out from another bag tossed in the back, the sight comforting as no other was.

At least guns haven't changed much, he thought, often. You still loaded, pointed, aimed, exhaled, fired, hit your mark, and repeated the action or moved on. And there was something strangely familiar, soothing even, about the smooth feeling of a stock and barrel beneath his fingers, something he felt went beyond the Winter Soldier's training. He'd been a marksman, the Smithsonian exhibit had said, which had made sense somewhere in his brain; firearms had been his art, until they became part of him like the metal arm he sported, additional appendages strapped onto his back, at his hip, concealed under other layers of armor in case he had need of them.

Scrubbing a hand across his face in a gesture that felt foreign, unnecessary, _human,_ he shifted the truck into gear and pulled onto the deserted highway to head east, on a self-ordered mission. He'd heard through some encoded chatter in the boards on his laptop that Rumlow, code-named Crossbones, made it out of the wreck in the Potomac, and was now recovering in a facility in New York. The man had been a staple in the Winter Soldier's job, always monitoring his scrubbings, training weapons on him as his arm was repaired or upgraded, ready to cuff him around the head if he so much as looked at him wrong. The bow-tied scientists and the fist-happy agents had erased anything they felt like from the very fibers of his being, and Rumlow's charred figure was now the next on the list to be in the Winter Soldier's crosshairs.

* * *

The call from Hill couldn't have come at a better time, Steve thought. He'd been in the middle of a fight with Barton all the way back to the safe-house he and Natasha had accessed in Montana, and then a fight with Natasha herself on a flight back to D.C. over his methods, and that led to a fight with Fury, who appeared via Natasha's facetime app on her cell. Damn Apple, he thought, regretting ever having discovered the phenomenon that enabled pissed-off former SHIELD directors to rail at him, their vigor somehow unhampered by the tiny glass screen that hosted them.

Finally leaving the room, he'd stormed back to the quarters he'd been offered in Stark Tower, the home base, as it were, for most of the Avengers at the moment. They were apparently the only semi-cohesive group in lieu of SHIELD, and stragglers like Jane Foster, her intern whose name he always forgot, Maria Hill occasionally, and even Erik Selvig, in between loony bin appointments, were now in residence in the large building. The hallways and communal rooms were often crowded, as was the gym, which was unfortunate; he _really _felt like a bout or two with the new punching bags Tony had ordered.

Instead, he nearly broke down his own door in an effort to be alone for a few moments. Sam was the only voice of reason right now, fully understanding the devotion to a wingman, the attachment formed both on and off a battlefield, and he assured Steve with a smile that he'd create a handmade "Do Not Disturb" sign for the Captain's door as soon as he was doing attempting to woo the Widow.

Breathing heavily, Steve paced to the window, picking up his shield on the way. The weight was a comfort, and he swung it around lightly in an absentminded gesture as he looked down at New York. He'd told Fury he had something to do, and he meant to do it. He'd only agreed to stay here with the others because Stark played by his own rules, and he'd figured there would be no one to give him orders. Suddenly it was a full house, SHIELD orphans showing up left and right, no one sure what to do with themselves.

He just wanted, needed, had to find Bucky, make him remember. At the very least, Bucky had to be uncertain, out on his own in the modern world right now without the support of a group like the Avengers. Steve tried to imagine what it was like, your brain, your motions not quite your own, sent out like death's errand boy and then docked upon return like a boat, moored for the off season. He couldn't.

Maria Hill had been immensely helpful, her cover at Stark Industries giving her access to all sorts of HYDRA's data, and she'd been able to tip him off to where possibly active bases were located. Wyoming had happened, and he'd been this close, _this close_, and Bucky had slipped through his fingers again. He felt like he'd failed him. He should've leapt after him and damned the consequences, should've mounted some sort of rescue, should've done better, or fallen with him. Instead he'd left his childhood savior and a piece of his soul to freeze at the bottom of an Austrian ravine.

A crashing noise sent Steve's eyes down to the desk beside him, where he'd slammed the shield into an unlucky wooden leg. The desk now slumped to one side, and his eyes widened, chagrined. He needed an outlet; maybe Sam was up for a run before Steve broke every stick of furniture in the tower.

* * *

Natasha Romanoff had thought that assisting Steve in his hunt – mission – desperate search for his friend would be something beneficial, karmatically speaking; instead, she'd apparently signed up for more of a headache than she thought.

Clint was pissed at her, Fury was pissed at her, hell, Rogers was pissed at her, even though she'd extracted his ass from HYDRA's grimy fingers. If she hadn't intercepted the coordinates Hill had sent him, he'd likely be in the same brainwashed boat as the Soldier, or dead. Leaning against the marble kitchen island in Stark Tower, she watched as Clint tweaked several cutting-edge – literally – advancements made to the tips of some new arrows. He made a little noise of frustration, and scooted backwards in his seat, avoiding a spray of something liquid that made the carpet smoke upon impact. Acidic arrows? Helpful in a bind; the two of them had a way of creating unique situations that really tested their equipment.

"We discussed this," she finally ground out, breaking the stony silence. "Red in the ledger."

"The entire _world _knows what red is in what line of your ledger now, Nat," Clint replied, focus on the arrow in his hand whose tip he was studiously avoiding touching. Stark was gonna kill him for getting acid on the carpet; at a sudden burst of inspiration, the toe of his boot edged a nearby ottoman closer until it covered the still-smoldering spot. He smiled at his ingenuity because _hell no _was he picking up a housekeeping bill.

"That doesn't exonerate me," she said quietly, gaze moving to the window. One could never be too vigilant.

"And so you're helping Rogers find the volatile, at _best_, Soviet assassin who blew a slug straight through you to reach his mark, to, what, bring him into our little hideout here so we can all play poker every Tuesday or something? Nat, it's crazy, even for you. Fury wants us in Europe, I don't even know why we're here-"

"So leave, then." Her words were cold and she sent him a sharp look before pacing to the window. "Rogers needs my help. I _owe _him, Clint, or Zola would have blown me to smithereens in that bunker."

"So do what Hill is doing – give him coordinates, weapons, I dunno, anything but walk yourself into the lion's den over and over when Simba's home and unpredictable."

"I came over to this side from that one. I can help, if Rogers can get through to him…"

"Cap is getting to you, huh? I can feel the morality in the air," Clint said with an eye roll, finally setting aside his weaponry.

Natasha just cocked a brow at him. "I'm an agent of…nobody, now. I can do what I want, and though I respect Fury as much as ever, I don't have to report to him anymore. This is my life now, for once. I'm not a name on a mission roster."

"I still don't think that justifies insanity," Clint muttered, standing and rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, moving to stand next to her as she looked out at the darkening New York sky. "But if it's what you wanna do, you've got my bow." He sniggered a little at the Lord of the Rings reference, which flew right over Natasha's head. She was more a horror-genre fan.

* * *

Food was a foreign concept, the Soldier always having been nourished intravenously between missions, or told to sip some protein-infused concoction or other when he showed signs of fatigue. He had access to none of that now, and he was feeling the twinges of what the scientists had always been so annoyed with, one of the few things they could not change. He was _starving_, something told him, not having ingested anything in two days except a bottle of Coca-Cola, the purchase of which he still could not explain.

The truck idled patiently in the parking lot of something called McDonald's – origin of the name, Scottish; menu a varied mix of what Americans now called "fast food". He grimaced, sharp eyes scanning a colored board from afar, bright block letters advertising "Big Macs" and something – something he'd had before, milkshakes. He'd had one before; he hadn't liked strawberry, but he'd loved chocolate.

Eyes flitting from side to side in a constant vigilance, he nervously tugged down the sleeve of his denim jacket as he slipped from the truck, left hand clad in a leather glove that caught unpleasantly on his metallic knuckles as he tried to secure it better. Quickly moving to the relative shelter of the building's awning, he moved around it, managing not to flinch too visibly at the cheery chime the door gave when he entered.

Eyeing the menu once more, something didn't seem right; the prices were so much higher than Buck- than he recalled, somehow. Shrugging, he pulled a wad of mixed bills from a pocket, frowning at them and trying to compare the digits printed on them to what he saw on the neon board. The restaurant was nearly empty, the young girl at the cash register trying to keep her smile from slipping at his odd actions and obvious confusion.

Satisfied with the crumpled paper in his hand, he took a moment to subtly scan the building, ascertaining it would be safe to spend a few moments in, and approached the girl behind the counter.

"Can I help you?" She managed, fingers tapping nervously on the cash register in front of her. Humans were often more intuitive than they thought, even if unconsciously – he was a danger, that was certain, though she couldn't know that for sure.

He managed to order a chocolate milkshake without too much trouble, the Russian tint to his words lessening as he took in the voices around him – he'd been taught verbal camouflage, and it was all coming back to him. The girl raised a brow at his terse "thank you", uttered in a faint Brooklyn accent, a nearly 360 turn from the Slavic edge to his syllables only thirty seconds ago, but she merely handed him his change and assured him it'd be right up.

He started to pace, feeling cage, enclosed, the building having far too many windows for his taste – they nearly completely formed the walls of the dining room, and he would have a lock on every single person in here if he was positioned just so on the roof of the mechanic shop across the street – shaking his head, he mutely accepted his order with an attempt at anything but a grimace.

Deciding to quit the too-open building, he left through a different door than he'd entered from, skirting around the rear of the building to make a roundabout path back to the stolen truck. As the driver's side door slammed shut, a beep sounded from the laptop, and he froze, eyes flitting to the device in question, half-visible in the canvas bag at his side.

He took a few experimental pulls from the milkshake, a foreign movement twitching his lips upwards; it was good, he thought, though the quality of taste was never something considered before. He carefully set it in the specified holder on the truck's dash, clicking open the laptop. There was a prompt on the screen; an update in HYDRA's virtual forum.

Tugging off the leather glove covering his flesh hand, he entered a few codes and clicked for entry, distantly pleased when his login was accepted. His features darkened immediately, though, in something he couldn't quite recognize as concern, when Steve Rogers' face crossed the screen, captioned as a "high priority for termination". There were a few cursory lines, highlighting the need for unification, calling any and all straggler cells to unite on the east coast, where a final crusade against Captain America would be mounted.

That wasn't right. He was _his_, his…Mission, that's right, not friend or comrade, not valued companion, just…his duty. A few paltry, sloppily-trained HYDRA agents were not going to beat him to the Captain, though what he'd do when he found him again, he still was uncertain from one moment to the next.

Carefully documenting a pair of coordinates given for a primary meeting, the Soldier clicked the laptop shut gently, setting it aside and retrieving the milkshake. Slurping at it one-handed, he confirmed the gas gauge was reading full, and continued through the grassy plains of somewhere that several signs labeled as Indiana.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! ~Bon**


End file.
